Consider the right covercrop

The use of game crops other than is on the rise, and Liam Bell runs throug some of the more popular options available

Maize has been receiving some bad press of late. This doesn't mean we should do away with M using it as a game crop altogether, it is just that people are becoming more aware of the downsides to growing it.

One of the biggest issues associated with the growing of maize is soil erosion and the connected loss of topsoil, as well as the leaching of chemicals into watercourses. It is also hungry crop, and as such is relatively expensive to grow when compared with something such as a millet mix, which requires less fertiliser. Add to that the fact that maize cobs feed significantly fewer farmland birds than the small seed crops do, and that a maize crop can be a magnet for undesirables such as rats and crows - which will stay in and around the area surrounding a game crop and actively seek out and predate the eggs and chicks of the very birds we are trying to help and you can see why the alternatives are becoming more popular schemes Maize is excluded from Countryside Stewardship for these very reasons, so if your crops are going to be part of a farm stewardship scheme, you are going to have to choose something else anyway. Kale is an obvious choice as it qualifies for use in wild bird seed mixes, because the small seeds it produces and sheds in its second year are a favourite food source of many of our smaller finches and seed-eaters. That a kale crop can be left for a second and very occasionally a third year is another selling point, but it is becoming harder are a good maize and sy to grow to grow.

If the seed is being sown into fertile (and well looked after) arable ground, the plants will probably do quite well. The same goes for kale crops that are following a grass ley.